Source: CA.news.yahoo.comYukon wildlife authorities are proceeding with charges against an Alaska hunting guide who’s accused of poaching game in Canada.Roland Martin, 72, is accused of more than 30 cross border violations. The charges stem from a joint United States-Canada investigation called “Operation Bruin.”Martin was a big game guide in Haines, Alaska for over 30 years, but American authorities have already ensured Martin will never work again in Alaska.This October, he was convicted in a federal court in Juneau on five felony counts relating to illegal hunting and importing wildlife."Mr. Martin would bait brown bears, subsequently use his aircraft to aid hunters in taking game that was not perceived as fair chase," says Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Schmidt, who prosecuted the case.Charges were laid in 2012 after undercover operations documented more than a dozen cases of bear baiting, and scouting by airplane for goat and sheep hunts."He was willing to do whatever needed to be done either to make his clients happy who were paying him or to take the animals he wanted to take," Schmidt says.Martin's sentence includes a lifetime ban from guiding in Alaska. He’s also been ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and forfeit all his hunting equipment, including a PA-18 Piper Supercub airplane.Schmidt says authorities had been keeping an eye on Martin for a long time."Oddly enough when I was a state prosecutor I have prosecuted Mr. Martin on several occasions."Martin is also accused of illegal sheep and moose hunts in the Yukon, stemming from hunts in the Kluane Park region. Charges include federal violations for smuggling game back to Alaska.Martin is next scheduled to appear in Yukon Territorial Court in January. More....

A big game guide from Haines was sentenced Tuesday in Juneau federal court for wildlife violations dating back to 2002 that involved the illegal taking and importation of wildlife and false labeling. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska announced that Haines resident Ronald L. Martin, 72, pled guilty to five felony counts of violating the Lacey Act and admitted to multiple illegal hunts, falsification of numerous documents and the importation of wildlife from Canada into the United States. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess fined Martin $40,000 and placed him on probation for four years. While on probation, Martin will be prohibited from hunting in the United States and he will be banned from hunting anywhere in the world for two years. The plea deal reached with federal prosecutors, which was accepted by the judge on Tuesday, also requires Martin to forfeit all illegal wildlife seized in the years-long investigation, plus a 27-foot trailer that was used to illegally import wildlife. In an interview Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Schmidt told the Empire that Martin has already been convicted and sentenced in state court for the offenses. He said the case rose to the federal level in part because Martin was illegally transporting wildlife across state lines. The federal Lacey Act of 1900 prohibits the trafficking of wildlife, plants and fish.In state court, Martin previously pled guilty to one count of baiting brown bears while guiding clients, and one count of guiding clients over an unregistered bear site, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Anchorage. As part of that conviction, Martin was fined $40,000 with $30,000 suspended and ordered to forfeit the following items: a PA-18 Piper Supercub airplane, a F-250 Ford pickup truck, a Honda ATV and a Kimber .338-caliber rifle with a Leopold scope. Martin’s hunting license was also revoked until May 2016, and he is prohibited from guiding, outfitting or transporting hunters, and is not allowed to accompany or assist hunters in the field. He is further prohibited from acting as a consultant, expediting, booking or renting hunting equipment and cannot apply for a hunting license until 2018. He was required to surrender his guide license for life. More....

An international wildlife investigation has resulted in the conviction of a big-game guide from Haines. The veteran guide admitted to multiple illegal hunts, submitting false documents for those hunts and importing animals killed in Alaska to Canada, according to U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler.Ronald L. Martin, 72, was sentenced in federal court in Juneau on five felony violations of the Lacey Act, which protects wildlife though civil and criminal penalties covering a wide array of violations. Notably, it prohibits the trade of illegally taken fish and game.Martin, a Haines resident and a guide for 30 years, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Monday. He admitted to the illegal hunts and importations. A district court judge handed down a sentence that includes four years of probation and a $40,000 fine.The hefty fine is the result of “Operation Bruin,” a joint U.S.-Canada wildlife investigation, the release says. Officials documented 10 illegal brown bear hunts, three illegal black bear hunts and four illegal mountain goat hunts together valued at $189,000. Martin reportedly hid horns and meat in a trailer to smuggle them into Canada.Haines, a town of 1,800 residents, sits close to the Canadian-U.S. border on Alaska’s Panhandle. Martin avoided prison for his crimes, infractions that are typically detested among Alaska guides and hunters. During his four years of probation, Martin cannot hunt in the United States; he is banned from hunting anywhere in the world for two years. He will not get back any of the game seized during the investigation or the 27-foot trailer he used to export the prize kills, according to a press release from Loeffler’s office. More....

An Anchorage Grand Jury handed down indictments for an Alaskan big game hunter and three of his Canadian clients on Friday according to acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis. 64-year-old Haines resident John Katzeek, employed as a big game guide in the state of Alaska, was indicted on nine counts that included conspiracy, filing false documents that concealed illegal guided hunts, the taking of wildlife and smuggling. Three others, 54-year-old Brian Hicken, 49-year-old Kenneth Cox, and 22-year-old Tyler Antal, all of Alberta, Canada, were also indicted on charges of conspiracy and false documents. The guided hunts and the hunts referred to in the indictments occurred between October, 2010 and November, 2011. According to the indictments, Mountain Goats were illegally taken and transported in violation of several laws, then the goat's horns and hides were illegally exported to Canada by the four in violation of the Lacey Act.

Also the indictments handed down concerned two alleged illegal trophy Dall Sheep importations that took place between December 2008 and March of 2009 and in 2010. It was during 2008 and 2009 that Katzeek and another individual used false documents to smuggle sheep horns in the U.S. from Canada. In 2010, Katzeek did the same thing with another trophy sheep. More....

Two Yukoners have been convicted of illegal hunting for the second time this year.A territorial court judge this week fined Alan Robinson and John Robinson, father and son, $12,600 and $9,600 respectively for violating the terms of their special guide licence and for hunting caribou in an area where they were not permitted to do so.They have also been banned from hunting for 14 and a half years.The conviction comes only six months after a conviction for separate but similar offences.In the first incident, the Robinsons were fined $5,000 each for hunting caribou in a protected area near the Hoole River in September of 2007.Their ATVs were seized and they were forbidden from hunting for five years, with the condition of also completing a hunter education and ethical development course.Those charges were laid in 2009, and the Robinsons pleaded guilty to the offences three days into a four-day trial in April of this year.The conservation officers proved their case by using trophy photos posted online to show the location of the hunt.In Judge Dennis Schmidt’s decision, he wrote that “there are only 15 conservation officers in the vast area of the Yukon, and the catching of the persons violating the hunting regulation has to be taken extremely seriously to support those few officers in the field.” More....

A Yukon guide says there aren't enough conservation officers to stop people from poaching caribou on the Dempster Highway near the border between Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Yukon conservation officials said they keep a close eye on the animals’ migration and send officers out when the caribou are near the road. Christopher Fragassi guides European tourists in and around the Dawson, Yukon, area. He said he has been watching poachers shoot caribou from the highway for the last decade."I know that the conservation officers in the Yukon are doing whatever they can with their resources, but obviously they do not have enough resources and obviously that keeps going on and getting worse," he said. Yukon’s District Conservation Officer, Kirby Meister, said officers have been out the past two weekends and haven't seen any evidence of poaching. "When the caribou migration brings more caribou out on the road, then we increase our patrols. Right now there are very few caribou out on the highway so we are only getting there infrequently," he said. Kirby said the caribou herd has not migrated to the Dempster Highway in the last three years. He also said the conservation office appreciates hearing from the public when they see poaching on the highway.

A judge said Yukon conservation officers did a brilliant job investigating a five-year-old caribou poaching case.The officers’ evidence convicted a trio of Yukon hunters for illegal caribou kills in the Finlayson Range area.The hunters, Alan Robinson, John Robinson and Jean-Claude Masse, denied the allegations until three days into last week's territorial court trial.The judge called it a brilliant bit of investigative work by the conservation officers. The charges were initially laid in 2009, but while investigating, the officers found the same hunting party had posted trophy hunting photos on a website from a 2007 hunt. The officers then matched photos from the same area to prove the men were hunting in a non-permitted zone.The poachers’ lawyer was eventually unable to refute the photographic evidence."Well it's evolving. A lot of people in law enforcement are realizing that social media can be a source of evidence sometimes and we are certainly ready to explore those options when it's available to us. It can be quite compelling," said Kris Gustafson, an enforcement manager for Environment Yukon.All three men hung their heads in shame while sentencing was passed Friday.The men must each pay a $5,000 fine, forfeit two all-terrain vehicles which were used in the hunts, and they are banned from hunting for at least five years.

Vast, wildlife-rich and staffed by only 13 in-the-field conservation officers, the Yukon is a perfect target for organized wildlife smuggling, says Michael O’Sullivan, director of the Humane Society of Canada.Each day, float planes could be clandestinely crossing the Canadian border, landing in remote areas and whisking out anything from sheep to falcons to bear parts without anybody knowing.“These things could definitely be going on,” said Tony Grabowski, manager of enforcement and compliance with the Yukon conservation officer services.The international market for smuggled wildlife is booming, with worldwide sales running anywhere from US$10 billion to $20 billion annually, making it the biggest moneymaker for organized crime after drugs, according to Interpol, the France-based international law enforcement network.Smugglers have been apprehended with endangered bird eggs shoved into bras, hollowed-out teddy bears stuffed with endangered reptiles and hummingbirds jammed into cigarette packages.In 2002, a man was arrested at Los Angeles’ LAX airport after two large birds of paradise came flying out of his luggage at security. Two pygmy monkeys were found stuffed in his pants.Several species of Yukon wildlife are at risk of falling into smugglers’ cross hairs.The territory’s gyrfalcons have long been prized by Middle Eastern falconers, fetching up to $100,000 apiece in the United Arab Emirates, report UN officials.Already, sheep poachers have been known to cross the Alaska border by float plane into Kluane National Park. More....